PORT
TOWNSEND
ST. PAUL'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH
1020 Jefferson Street
Port Townsend · (360) 385-0770
Suggested
Donation:
$20 to $30
(a free will offering - everyone
welcome)
•
18
and under FREE •
SSEMF presents outstanding early chamber music in Port
Townsend thanks to your support.
The
Salish Sea Early Music Festival is a
501(c)3 organization and all donations are
fully tax deductible in accordance with
the law. Your donations are welcomed at
https://www.salishseafestival.org/donate .
✣
With special thanks
✣ to
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
2025
Salish Sea Early Music Festival in Port Townsend ~
Period Instrument chamber music from six centuries
in Port Townsend and around the Salish Sea ~
~ Presented in
collaboration with St. Paul's Episcopal Church ~
~
Mostly Sundays at 2:00 PM
except May 16
★ download updated
flyer here ~
Sunday,
June 8,
2025 at 2:00 PM:
—FOLK
SONG FROM THREE
CENTURIES II
Renaissance
Psalms, Scottish Baroque
& Folk
· Oleg
Timofeyev,
renaissance lute, English
guitar & 7-string
guitar (1820)
· Jeffrey
Cohan,
renaissance, baroque &
8-keyed flutes (London,
1820)
Renaissance Psalms
(~1620), Irish and
Scottish baroque (~1720)
and folk music as
interpreted during
Beethoven's lifetime
(~1820) in part II, a 100%
new program of highly
innovative renditions of
settings from three
centuries based on popular
and folk music, performed
on 5 transverse flutes and
three plucked instruments.
Flutist Jacob Van Eyck and
lutenist Nicolas Vallet
both wrote settings of and
variations on many of the
Psalm tunes from the
Geneva Psalter of the
mid-16th century. These
settings by two
individuals from the same
period on psalmns that
were widely heard in
churches throughout Europe
are juxtaposed
simultaneously in a manner
that sheds new light on
early 17th-century
practice.
James Oswald's "Airs for
the Seasons" contains four
groups, one for each
season, of about 25 mini
suites of between one and
three movements, each
dedicated to a particular
flower of the season, and
radiating the charming
character of the folk
melodies of Oswald's
native Scotland. The wire
strung English guitar, so
rarely to be heard today,
emerged around this time
as one of the most
prominent instruments of
home life in England, and
Oswald's airs beautifully
suit Oleg's instrument
made in 1767 alongside the
one-keyed baroque flute.
Likewise, settings of the
popular tunes written
specifically for the
English guitar by scotsman
Robert Bremner and others
are to be heard. And on
baroque flute and lute,
settings from several
decades earlier of Irish
popular melodies by Burk
Thumoth and Francesco
Barsanti are to be
realized.
Finally, an Eastern
European 7-string guitar
made in 1820 in Russia amd
an eight-keyed flute made
in London in the same year
resonate to variations on
popular tunes by
Englishman Charles
Nicholson, American Joseph
Kennedy, Austrian Anton
Diabelli and other
virtuoso flutists and
guitarists of Beethoven’s
day.
LISTEN:
Oleg
Timofeyev and Jeffrey
Cohan play Drouet's God
Save the Queen on
SoundCloud:
Early July: — THE
18TH-CENTURY HARPSICHORD
IN SPAIN
(only
in Seattle,
Vancouver and
Tacoma -
please see
those pages on
our site)
· Irene
Roldàn,
harpsichord
Step into the heart of
18th-century Iberia, where the
vibrant court of Madrid stood as
a focal point for the
flourishing of the rich keyboard
music of Domenico Scarlatti,
Sebastian de Albero, Jose de
Nebra, and the Portuguese Carlos
Seixas. [only in certain
locations]
Sunday, July 13
at 2:00 PM: — JOHANN
SEBASTIAN BACH
· Irene
Roldàn, harpsichord
· Jeffrey
Cohan, baroque flute
Spanish harpsichordist Irene
Roldàn from Basel and Jeffrey
interpret Bach's phenomenal
music for flute and harpsichord.
UKRAINE
Olena
Zhukova
It is a great honor to feature
Ukrainian harpsichordist Olena
Zhukova of Kyiv,
Ukraine, a leading
harpsichordist and a tireless
ambassador of
early music in her country
and abroad
during this difficult period.
She has performed since the
outbreak of full-scale war in
prominent performances
sponsored by distinguished
institutions all around
Ukraine, Poland, Austria,
France, Switzerland and Czech
Republic for international
festivals and in collaboration
with major artists, orchestras
and opera productions. Ms.
Zhukova is also an
accomplished scholar who
published and presented more
than 20 articles, while
devoting herself to her
harpsichord class and chamber
music students as Associate
Professor at both the National
Music Academy of Ukraine
and the Gliére Academy of
Music (Kiev), where she
founded the harpsichord class.
Recent engagements during the
past few months alone include
Bach's Goldberg Variations in
the prestigious Organ Hall
in Lviv, Ukraine; the first
major classical performance
for the public in Chernihiv,
Ukraine since
the outbreak of war entitled French
Music in Times of War
and sponsored by the
Ambassador of France, in a
newly rebuilt performance hall
in Chernihiv that had
previously been extensively
damaged by a Russian strike at
the beginning of the conflict;
and an involved program,
consisting exclusively of new
music in part composed for her
by today's Ukrainian
composers, for Columbia
University’s Global Center
in Paris and its Institute
for Ideas and Imagination.
Ms.
Zhukova will appear in the
following two programs:
Dates
to be announced: —
HARPSICHORD
MYSTERY
(Seattle,
Vancouver and Tacoma
only)
· Elena
Zhukova,
harpsichord
The Ukrainian harpsichordist
deciphers mysterious and
elusive rarities as well as
standards for solo harpsichord
by Byrd, Couperin, Rameau and
Scarlatti alongside Ukrainian
gems including a harpsichord
sonata by Dmitry Bortnyansky.
[only in Seattle,
Vancouver and Tacoma]
Dates
to be announced:
— EUROPEAN
TOUR 1690-1790
· Elena
Zhukova, harpsichord
· Jeffrey
Cohan, baroque flute
An excursion through a century
of transformation and diversity
by decade and culture within the
baroque and classical periods,
through the perspective of
composers for harpsichord and
flute from France, Italy,
Scotland, Germany and Ukraine.
~
Earlier concerts this 2025 season
~
Sunday,
January 19, 2025 at
2:00 PM: — THE
CANZONA
· Vicki
Boeckman, renaissance
recorders
· Tina Chancey,
tenor viol
· Jeffrey
Cohan, renaissance
transverse flutes
· Anna Marsh,
dulcian (renaissance bassoon)
Featuring
special guest renaissance
specialist and innovative
improviser Tina Chancey from
Hesperus in Washington, DC, this
in-depth exploration of the
Italian four-part canzona, which
blossomed in print from 1577
through the mid 1600’s, traces
its development from 1533, when
commercial music printing was in
its infancy in Europe, through
1636 at which point more
“baroque” stylistic forms such
as the sonata and the suite had
begun to emerged. Canzonas by
Florentino Maschera (1582),
Floriano Canale (1600), Giovanni
Dominico Rognoni Taegio (1605),
Antonio Troilo (1606), Giovanni
Gabrieli (1608), Girolamo
Frescobaldi (1608), Giovanni
Antonio Cangiasi (1614), Giacomo
Biumi (1624), Nicolo Corradini
(1624), Giovanni Buonamente
(1636) and others are to be
included in the program along
with examples of the earlier
French and Flemish songs of the
early 1500's that inspired them,
including well known chansons
published specifically for
instrumentalists in 1533, 1577
and 1588, among them Clement
Jannequin’s “Song of the Birds”.
Renaissance winds of three
distinct families along with the
fretted viols provide an
exciting blend and a distinct
character to each of the four
intertwining musical lines.
Sunday,
February 23,
2025 at 2:00 PM:
— THE
CHACONNE with LES VOIX
HUMAINES
· Susie Napper,
viola da gamba & treble
viol
· Mélisande
Corriveau, viola da
gamba & pardessus de viol
· Elisabeth
Wright, harpsichord
· Jeffrey
Cohan, baroque and
renaissance flutes
Les
Voix humaines,
the widely celebrated
prize-winning duo of viols
from Montreal joins us for a
program demonstrating the
chaconne at it's most
poignant, transporting three
important works by Johann
Sebastian Bach to an entirely
new level through their own
transcriptions, and presenting
other remarkable but rarely
heard repertoire for two viola
da gambas, pardessus de viol,
flute and harpsichord.
The
hypnotic French chaconne that
developed during the reign of
Louis XIV brings the listener
from one emotional realm to the
next in a regular procession of
episodes that transition gently
in an emotional direction or
leap suddenly with emotion and
stark contrast, now uplifting or
sad, majestic or introspective,
hopeful or questioning. The
pulse may feel broader, then
more angular, then running with
abandon or pregnant with poise,
always cleverly evolving in the
presentation of a musical
story. Bach
and Telemann succeed in bringing
this chaconne to a whole new
level, as we'll experience with
"Les Voix Humaines" in their
very own transcription of Bach's
Chaconne in D Minor for
2 viola da gambas, originally
for solo violin, and in the
chaconne entitled Modéré
from Telemann's Paris
Quartet No. 12 in E Minor
for flute, pardessus de viole,
viola da gamba and harpischord.
Two outstanding quartets for two
viola da gambas, flute and
harpsichord celebrating this
unusual combination of
instruments will be heard
alongside two additional
transcriptions: for flute,
pardessus de viol and
harpsichord of Bach's Organ
Trio Sonata in D Minor,
and for solo harpsichord of the
Allemande from Bach's D
Major Suite No. 6 for
solo cello.
From
the standpoint of the
Salish Sea Early Music
Festival and
as Tobias Hume asserted in
1605, "Now to use a modest
shortness, and a brief
expression of my self to all
noble spirits": Les Voix
Humaines is simply
phenomenal!
In
1676, Thomas Mace accurately
expressed their sentiments: "I
have been more Sensibly,
Fervently, and Zealously
Captivated, and drawn into
Divine Raptures, and
Contemplations, by Those
Unexpressible Rhetorical,
Uncontroulable Perswasions, and
Instructions of Musicks Divine
Language."
A perfect description of their
vision of music making, Sloane
wrote c.1794: "There must be an
Order and just Proportion,
Intricacy with Simplicity in the
Component parts, Variety in the
Mass, and Light and Shadow in
the whole, so as to produce the
varied sensations of gaiety and
melancholy, of wildness and even
surprise and wonder…"
And as Thomas Mace says in 1676:
"…When we come to be Masters… we
can command all manner of Time,
at our own Pleasures; we Then
take Liberty for Humour and good
Adornment-sake, to Break Time;
sometimes Faster, sometimes
Slower, as we perceive, the
Nature of the Thing Requires,
which…adds much Grace and Luster
to the Performance."
Sunday,
March 9, 2025
at 2:00 PM:
—
FRENCH
BAROQUE TRIO SONATAS
with MUSICA ALTA RIPA
· Anne
Röhrig,
violin
· Bernward
Lohr, harpsichord
· Susie
Napper, viola da
gamba
· Jeffrey
Cohan, baroque
flute
French
trio sonatas and quartets
spanning more than 60 years
through the reigns of Louis
XIV and Louis V, alongside a
"Paris Quartet" written by
Georg Philipp Telemann for his
visit to Paris in 1738.
Marin
Marais (1656 – 1728)
—
Trio
C major (1682)
Jean-Baptiste Quentin, the
young (before 1690 – ca.
1742)
—
Trio
in G minor Opus 8 No. 1
(after 1729)
Louis-Gabriel Guillemain
(1705 – 1770)
—
Trio
Sonata No. 3 in D Minor
(1743)
Jean-Marie Leclair l'aîné
(1697 – 1764)
—
Violin
Sonata in A Minor
Joseph Bodin de Boismortier
(1689 – 1755)
—
Trio
Sonata Opus 37 No. 2 in e
minor (1732)
MUSICA
ALTA RIPA
Harpsichordist BERNWARD LOHR
is director of Hanover's
Musica Alta Ripa, one of
Germany's most active and
extensively recorded period
instrument ensembles. Baroque
violinist ANNE RÖHRIG, leads
the Hannoversche Hofkapelle
(the "Hanover Court
Orchestra"), another of the
premier baroque orchestras
that contributes to the
vibrant early music scene in
Hannover and Northern Germany.
“Hannover” originally evolved
from "Hohes Ufer", meaning
"high riverbank" or "Alta
Ripa" in Latin. Bernward Lohr
and Anne Röhrig are professors
at music conservatories in
both Hannover and Nuremburg,
Germany. Their more than 30
recordings have garnered many
of the most important awards
in Europe for recordings
including the Diapason Dòr,
the Cannes Classical Award,
the German Recording Critics'
Prize, and several times the
coveted Echo Klassik Award.
Both were awarded the 2002
Music Award of Lower Saxony.
Sunday,
May 4 at 2:00 PM:
— The
MUSIQUE DE LA CHAMBRE of
LOUIS XIV
· Caroline
Nicolas, viola da
gamba
· William
Simms, baroque
guitar
· Jeffrey
Cohan, baroque
flute
The
MUSIQUE DE LA CHAMBRE of LOUIS
XIV features music by
prominent soloists, all
composers, who frequently
played for Louis XIV,
including the king’s guitar
instructor Robert De Visée and
his Italian predecessor
Francesco Corbetta, along with
a favorite viola da gambist at
the court, Marin Marais and
his teacher Monsieur de
Sainte-Colombe, as well as
Élisabeth Jacquet de La
Guerre, a young harpsichordist
and one of the few famous
female musicians of her time
whose playing and compositions
Louis deeply admired and
subsidized.
This program stands apart in a
variety of ways. Jeffrey Cohan
discovered the earliest known
French solo specifically for
the transverse flute by the
king’s court music librarian
André Danican Philidor L'Aisné
in a relatively unknown and as
yet unpublished manuscript
which was prepared in 1695 by
Philidor himself as a present
from Louis XIV for the Duke of
Bavaria. Marin Marais asserted
that his music for viola da
gamba might be played on the
transverse flute, as is to be
realized in a Suite from his
first book of pieces for viola
da gamba. Similarly a sonata
by Jacquet de La Guerre
assumes new resonance in our
realization for transverse
flute, gamba and guitar.
Caroline Nicolas and William
Simms will perform solos for
viola da gamba and guitar by
De Visée, Corbetta and
Sainte-Colombe.
The French musical perspective
emulated reason and
moderation, with sensory
perception serving
comprehension. French
musicians aspired to thrill
the senses via the intellect,
in a continual search for
grace and elegance. Dance was
viewed as the consummate
expression of the mastery of
body and mind and the epitome
of aristocratic art, as
evidenced by Louis XIV's daily
dance lessons for 20 years
alongside frequent guitar
lessons. Every French court
and church musician reflected
musically their determination
to depict refinement and true
sentiments, while dispensing
with excessive turbulence and
contrast. All of this
contrasted greatly with the
Italian focus on the direct
expression of emotions via
their virtuoso and flamboyant
approach, which was indeed
admired in some circles in
France.
Friday,
May 16 at 6:00
PM (not 7 PM, rescheduled from
May 25): — CONCERTI
from the COURT of FREDERICK
THE GREAT (please
note revised date,
and 6:00
start time)
· David Schrader,
harpsichord
· Jeffrey
Cohan, baroque
flute
· Elizabeth
Phelps, baroque
violin
· Courtney
Kuroda, baroque
violin
· Christine
Moran,
baroque viola
· Susie
Napper,
baroque cello
A concerto by Frederick
II, the monarch of Prussia
from 1740, will be
included alongside the
Suite in B Minor by Johann
Sebastian Bach, whose
visit to the king's court
in 1747 is legendary, and
concerti by Frederick's
keyboardist Carl Philipp
Emanuel Bach for both
harpsichord and flute.
Fantasia
11 by Giovanni Bassano (1585)
January 11, 2021
~ updated
May 28, 2025 ~ Do you receive our
email announcements and flyers?!
Please sign our MAILING LIST and please specify Port
Townsend
by sending your
address and any other comments to salishseafestival@aol.com
~ thank you!
SSEMF
banner: detail from "The
Last Time it Reached Zero"
by James
C. Holl. SSEMF presents
outstanding early
chamber music
on period instruments thanks
to your support.
17th
Century
Friday,
May 16 at 